Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/25

 Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands,"

do you think that he receives no spiritual benefit? or that no spiritual benefit is thereby implied? if not, are not the words blasphemy? but if the Holy Ghost be thereby bestowed, if the ordained person "receive the Holy Ghost for the office of a priest in the Church of God," is not ordination to him a means of grace, and so, although not a sacrament, does it not "possess in a high degree the sacramental character?" and ought this subject to be treated of in merriment?

Again, a writer after having, in a very interesting paper, pointed out the notices of an extensive Christian ritual contained in Scripture itself, adduced two passages, "in further illustration of the subject" from Tertullian, 200, and St. Basil,  350, both of whom maintain the binding character of usages, which, though not in Scripture, had come down from the Apostles by a "continuous tradition." And who would not? Is not our argument against the modern Church of Rome, that she has introduced "a corrupt following of the Apostles," (Art. 25.) "fond things vainly invented" and grounded upon no "warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God" (Art. 22.)? The ground taken by the Church of Rome is that all her present traditions are to be received, as of equal validity with the written word, because she holds them; our ground, that they are not to be so received, because they cannot be proved to be apostolic, and some are corrupt and vainly invented. Our controversy then with Rome is not an à priori question on the value of tradition in itself, or at an earlier period of the Church, or of such traditions, as, though not contained in Scripture, are primitive, universal, and apostolical, but it is one purely historical, that the Romanist traditions not being such, but, on the contrary, repugnant to Scripture, are not to be received. It has manifestly, then, nothing to do with the question between Rome and ourselves, what Tertullian and St. Basil held of traditions